Delays in avian flu vaccination could be resolved by end February

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JEREMY MAGGS: You’ll recall that late last year, South Africa was hit by a devastating avian flu outbreak, which almost broke the back of the poultry industry, but strides are now being made in this R60 billion a year sector. Izaak Breitenbach is the chief executive officer of the South African Poultry Association (Sapa) and he’s up first on Moneyweb@Midday. Firstly, how has this influenza outbreak affected the overall productivity and financial health of the sector?

IZAAK BREITENBACH: It had a devastating effect. If we look at the companies, big and small, they were all affected by the disease. We culled in the region of 9.5 million birds, and we didn’t only lose the birds that we culled but we also lost the next years’ worth of production from these birds. So it had a huge impact on the industry.

JEREMY MAGGS: What’s the position right now?

IZAAK BREITENBACH: It has actually improved. We had our last outbreak towards the end of November and subsequent to that no further outbreaks.

But we still have the wild bird population positive for H5 avian influenza strain and, therefore, we are still at risk, and we will have to wait for another two weeks to see if we have killed off the disease.

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JEREMY MAGGS: Alright. Now there are specific issues or disagreements over protocols that have led to the Department of Health not approving application for vaccination. Can you simplify that for me?

IZAAK BREITENBACH: Yes, I can. If we actually talk about vaccination, at present we actually have three different H5 vaccines available that companies can immediately use to vaccinate. Now the strain that caused the trouble was the H7 strain. We have imported a vaccine, that vaccine was not approved for usage and reason being that it wasn’t effective against the H7 strain we have in South Africa.

So what we’ve done is we’ve actually developed a vaccine locally up until the end of November. We tested that vaccine during December and the dossier for approval was submitted to Act 36.

So we expect an outcome by the end of February and that will put us in a position to vaccinate.

JEREMY MAGGS: Are you confident you’ll get that permission though?

IZAAK BREITENBACH: We think so, yes… With the process that the vaccine followed, we believe that we will get approval for that. The other issue that we need to deal with is that for this controlled disease, we actually need to comply with very stringent biosecurity protocols and those protocols we negotiate with the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD).

That was published, the ones that we’ve agreed, was published at the end of November. We asked DALRRD to approve and publish these regulations to put us in a position to vaccinate. So I think that we will see a flurry of applications to vaccinate by the end of February.

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JEREMY MAGGS: But you are concerned that there’s been a little bit of dragging of feet here, aren’t you?

IZAAK BREITENBACH: It’s slower than what we would’ve liked it to be. I think that’s the one issue that I need to mention. The second one is that if we look at what was published at the end of November, those protocols, most of the broiler breeder birds will be able to comply with those.

So if the broiler breeder companies apply, 7.8 million birds will qualify to be vaccinated.

What we haven’t agreed is for the commercial layer birds to comply with these stringent requirements.

They’re not in a very good position in terms of biosecurity, like what we have with broiler breeders. As it stands, we will be able to vaccinate 7.8 million broiler breeders, but we will still have 27 million commercial layers not vaccinated. For vaccines to work, we need to actually vaccinate the population.

JEREMY MAGGS: You also need to produce the vaccination surely at a faster rate.

IZAAK BREITENBACH: Correct. In terms of the availability of vaccine, that is not problematic at all. We will have enough vaccine available for the country and what we also need to do is obviously vaccinate the 7.8 million birds and that will mean we will use a needle and vaccinate the day-old chicks. But that’s common for us. We do that for other vaccines as well. So I don’t foresee a logistical problem in getting the birds vaccinated.

JEREMY MAGGS: How is all of this affecting price of product going forward?

IZAAK BREITENBACH: In terms of meat, there was no impact on price whatsoever. If I look at the slaughter numbers for last year, we slaughtered about 21.5 million birds per week. That is totally normal and the reason being that we imported 150 million hatching eggs to replace the hatching eggs that we’ve lost due to the disease. So we haven’t seen a meat shortage at all last year.

The very marginal 5.4% increase in price, which is normal for the period September to December, and then in January this year we saw a reduction in the price of chicken meat.

The commercial layer eggs, table eggs, completely different to what’s happening with meat. We’ve had a shortage last year. That shortage is still with us and probably will be with us for the next six months.

JEREMY MAGGS: How serious is that shortage?

IZAAK BREITENBACH: It’s a material shortage. We’ve lost 20% of all the commercial layer flocks that we used to have on the ground. Obviously, as we get the disease, the farmers immediately start to replace these birds. So there are birds coming into production that are replacements for the disease, but that’ll still take another six months to replace all of the birds that we’ve lost.

JEREMY MAGGS: Izaak Breitenbach, thank you very much indeed, chief executive officer at the SA Poultry Association.